Ginny Cleaveland, Deputy Press Secretary, Fossil-Free Finance, Sierra Club, ginny.cleaveland@sierraclub.org, 415-508-8498 (Pacific Time)
WASHINGTON, DC — As Republican members of the US House Financial Services Committee convene a series of hearings in July on environmental, social, governance (ESG) investment practices, the Sierra Club’s Executive Director Ben Jealous called the hearings an anti-free market, climate denial sideshow attempting to take away investment options and hide significant risks from everyday Americans managing their savings and retirement accounts.
Jealous spoke at a press conference on Wednesday afternoon alongside representatives with the Congressional Sustainable Investment Caucus, which is chaired by Reps. Sean Casten (D-IL) and Juan Vargas (D-CA), following the hearing titled “Protecting Investor Interests: Examining Environmental and Social Policy in Financial Regulation”. It is the first of six House Financial Services Committee hearings expected this month led by the Republican majority, focusing on its attempts to undermine the freedom to invest responsibly.
During the press conference, members of the Congressional Sustainable Investment Caucus and House Financial Services Committee underscored the importance of preserving the free-market principles of consumer choice and investor freedom to address the urgent and growing risks posed by climate change.
“This crusade against sustainable investing is nothing more than a manufactured culture war backed by fossil fuel interests and dark money funders. This shameful effort to eliminate investor freedom is a smoke and mirrors distraction from the fact that the fossil fuel industry’s politicians do not want to address the enormous threats that climate change poses to our economy. Instead, they are doubling down on an anti-free market, climate denier agenda in an attempt to take away responsible investment options from everyday Americans and shield big polluters from the clean energy transition already well underway,” said Ben Jealous, Executive Director of the Sierra Club.
POLLING ON ESG
Polling by Climate Power in March 2023 shows that the Republican attack on responsible investing is largely happening inside a bubble. A majority (57%) of voters have never heard about ESG investing and only 7% of voters have heard a lot about it. In addition, a majority (54%) of voters agree that financial managers should be allowed to consider environmental factors, such as climate risks or the riskiness of investing in fossil fuels, when making investment decisions for retirement funds, with just 34% opposing.
This polling reveals that voters do not want their retirement fund managers to be told how to invest their retirement funds. Republican efforts to do so — including this upcoming series of July hearings with the House Financial Services Committee — will be a political loser and is contradictory to the party’s supposed free-market principles.
About the Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is America’s largest and most influential grassroots environmental organization, with millions of members and supporters. In addition to protecting every person's right to get outdoors and access the healing power of nature, the Sierra Club works to promote clean energy, safeguard the health of our communities, protect wildlife, and preserve our remaining wild places through grassroots activism, public education, lobbying, and legal action. For more information, visit www.sierraclub.org.